Wednesday, April 16, 2008

JOHANNESBURG, April 15 -- Zimbabwe's military has taken day-to-day control of key elements of the national government, limiting the authority of President Robert Mugabe as he struggles to maintain power after 28 years, according to senior government sources, Western diplomats and analysts....

National decision-making increasingly has been consolidated within the Joint Operations Command, a shadowy group consisting of the leaders of the army, air force, police, intelligence agency and prison service -- a group Zimbabweans call the "securocrats."

Although those officials long have been powerful, their authority in government and political matters grew sharply in the days after the election, when it became clear that Mugabe had lost a first round of balloting to longtime opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai....

"The arrangement is just temporary because once he wins [a runoff vote], as the army expects him to, he will be back in charge."...

... meeting between top military officers and Mugabe last week in Murombedzi, about 55 miles southwest of Harare, the capital. After declaring to the president that they were in charge, the officers laid out a plan by which he would contest a runoff vote in conditions made far more favorable by military control of polling stations and central counting centers, the general said....

Their job, the general said, is to coordinate political violence by ruling party groups that are intimidating and attacking opposition supporters. ...